Thomas Boysen Anker, Ross Gordon and Nadia Zainuddin
The emerging consumer-dominant logic of marketing captures consumers’ active and primary role in a range of mainstream marketing processes such as branding, product development…
Abstract
Purpose
The emerging consumer-dominant logic of marketing captures consumers’ active and primary role in a range of mainstream marketing processes such as branding, product development and sales. However, consumers’ active role in driving pro-social behaviour change has not yet received close attention. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explore consumer dominance in social marketing. The authors propose a definition of consumer-dominant social marketing (CDSM) and explicate five key elements which underpin the phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual study offers an analysis informed by exemplars with significant representations of consumer-dominant pro-social behaviours and projects. The methodological approach is characterised as “envisioning conceptualisation”, which is explained in terms of MacInnis’ (2011) framework for conceptual approaches in marketing.
Findings
As a phenomenon, CDSM operationalises the following elements: power, agency, resources, value and responsibility. The authors demonstrate how these elements are interconnected and define their meaning, significance and implications in the context of social marketing and pro-social behaviour change. The authors also identify this new form of social marketing as existing on a continuum depending on the level of involvement or dominance of the consumer and of social marketers; at one end of this continuum, exclusive CDSM is entirely consumer-driven and does not engage with businesses or organisations, while on the other end, inclusive CDSM encompasses partnership with external stakeholders to achieve pro-social behaviour change.
Research limitations/implications
The existence of inclusive and exclusive CDSM points towards an intricate power balance between consumers, mainstream social marketers and businesses. While this study identifies and explains this substantial distinction, it is an important task for future research to systematise the relationship and explore the optimal balance between consumer activism and involvement of formalised organisations such as charities and businesses in pro-social behaviour change projects.
Practical implications
The study provides social marketing professionals with an understanding of the benefits of harnessing consumer empowerment to enhance the impact of social marketing interventions.
Originality/value
The study makes a theoretical contribution by introducing, defining and explicating consumer dominance as a substantive area of social marketing.
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Thomas Boysen Anker, Leigh Sparks, Luiz Moutinho and Christian Grönroos
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the ontological and semantic foundations of consumer-dominant value creation to clarify the extent to which the call for a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the ontological and semantic foundations of consumer-dominant value creation to clarify the extent to which the call for a distinct consumer-dominant logic (CDL) is justified. This paper discusses consumer-driven value creation (value-in-use) across three different marketing logics: product-dominant logic (PDL), service-dominant logic (SDL) and CDL. PDL conceptualises value as created by firms and delivered to consumers through products. SDL frames consumer value as a function of direct provider-consumer interaction, or consumer-driven chains of action indirectly facilitated by the provider. Recently, the research focus has been turning to consumer-dominant value creation. While there is agreement on the significance of this phenomenon, there is disagreement over whether consumer-dominant value creation is an extension of SDL or calls for a distinct CDL.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper, which is informed by five cases of consumer dominance. The cases are used to clarify rather than verify the analysis of the ontological and semantic underpinnings of consumer-dominant value creation.
Findings
The ontological and semantic analysis demonstrates that PDL and SDL have insufficient explanatory power to accommodate substantial aspects of consumer-dominant value creation. By implication, this supports the call for a distinct CDL.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the ongoing theoretical debate over the explanatory power of SDL by demonstrating that SDL is unable to accommodate important ontological and semantic aspects of consumer-driven value creation.
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Gustav Medberg and Christian Grönroos
The definition of value adopted by the current service perspective on marketing theory is value as value-in-use. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been given to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The definition of value adopted by the current service perspective on marketing theory is value as value-in-use. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been given to the question of what constitutes value-in-use for customers in service contexts? Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide an empirical account of value-in-use from service customers' point of view.
Design/methodology/approach
To capture and analyze customers' experiences of value-in-use in the typical service context of retail banking, this study employed a narrative-based critical incident technique (CIT) and a graphical tool called the value chart.
Findings
The study identified seven empirical dimensions of positive and negative value-in-use: solution, attitude, convenience, expertise, speed of service, flexibility and monetary costs. Interestingly, these value-in-use dimensions overlap considerably with previously identified dimensions of service quality.
Research limitations/implications
The concepts of service quality and value-in-use in service contexts seem to represent the same empirical phenomenon despite their different theoretical traditions. Measuring customer-perceived service quality might therefore be a good proxy for assessing value-in-use in service contexts.
Practical implications
As the findings indicate that service quality is the way in which service customers experience value-in-use, service managers are recommended to focus on continuous quality management to facilitate the creation of value-in-use.
Originality/value
This study is the first to explicitly raise the notion that in the minds of service customers, value defined as value-in-use and service quality may represent the same empirical phenomenon.